“Only when the last tree has died

and the last river been poisoned

and the last fish has been caught

will we realize that we cannot eat money”

Unknown[1]

Money is the currency of this modern world that I am living in, and it is my belief that as long as this is a fact, Nature is in trouble. I truly believe that with everything else in life, there need to be a balance between money and nature, if we as humanity want to survive on this planet.

A tool that can give us a hint about this balance is “Earth Overshoot Day”. It is the day where it has been calculated, that humanity has used the quantity of resources that this planet is able to regenerate within a year. After that date, we are operating in overshoot of what Mother Nature’s biocapacity can endure.

The calculation of “Earth’s Overshoot Day” is made by the Global Footprint Network[2] and goes like;

(Planet’s Biocapacity / Humanity’s Ecological Footprint) x 365 = Earth Overshoot Day[3]

I will not go into dept with the method of the calculation, because I don’t find myself qualified to do so. This is merely a quick explanation of the calculation.

The Planets biocapacity is the ability of ecosystems to renew themselves each year and is calculated by finding what resources of forest, pastures or farmland, available for the given year, and how big the size of fish and animal populations are, and which resources we can extract from Earth.

Humanity’s Ecological Footprint is calculated by how much productive sea and land are needed to produce all the resources a population consumes and to absorb human waste and the carbon emission left from our activities.

Basically, it is a calculation based on what Earth can produce vs. what us humans consume. When the consumption is higher than the bio-capacity, we will have used the resources before Earth can restore them in the current year.

Earth Overshoot Day in 2018 was on the 1st of August, but as one can see, the consumption is distributed very uneven. I live in Denmark and if everyone in the world lived as the Danes, the overshoot day would already be on the 28th of March and we would need 4,2 Earth’s to maintain our present consumption[4]. That is some scary stuff to acknowledge, because I have always had the vision, that the Danish people were some of the front runners, when it came to living a modern sustainable /green lifestyle, due to organic farming, conscious consumers, solar panels, wind power and our bicycle riding. But Earths Overshoot Day, kind a just tells me, that we are being greenwashed as such. Unfortunately, the situation has not improved much within the last two years.

Earth Overshoot Day EOD Denmark

2019 29th of July 29th of March

2020 22nd of August 28th of March

2021 29th of July 26th of March

The method of calculation has been met with some different critiques, questioning whether Earth Overshoot Day is actually giving us the right picture, when it comes to humanity’s overuse of Earth’s resources. It is pointed out that the calculations;

1. doesn’t distinguish between sustainable and unstainable uses of crop and grazing land

2. it doesn’t account for other means of carbon sequestration, like ocean and soil[5].

3. it is claimed that greenhouses gases and CO2 emission are what is really pushing our natural ecosystems, while we are emitting more gases than Earths ecosystems can absorb. Our carbon footprint accounts for 60 % of our impact on the environment and these emissions are what is causing “humanity going into ecological debt”[6]

None the less it seems as though there is a common consensus that the simplicity in “Earth Overshoot Day” is a great tool to increase awareness about the impact of human activities on this planet’s ecosystems. The article from 2018, that I mentioned in my introduction, about Earth Overshoot Day, for sure created a new awareness in my mind and showed me that Mother Nature needs help.

The numbers from 2019 and 2020 are not making me more optimistic about the forecast for Natures future. On the contrary I had been hoping that the date for the overall world, would have moved a bit more in 2020, due to the COVID lockdowns, because this to me, means that we have a huge climate emergency that we need to address asap. When it comes to the numbers regarding Denmark, then yeah, I am not proud of what I have participated in and it needs to change, at least for me.

The question will be HOW. And since there is a claim that our carbon emissions accounts for 60 % of our impact on the environment and causing the ecological debt, I think it would be a good place to start, creating some changes.

[1] I write unknown because there seem to be different opinions to whom should have the credit for this quote.

[2] Home - Global Footprint Network

[3] If you want to read more about how the numbers from the calculations are found, see Past Earth Overshoot Days - #MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day

[4] https//www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/klima/i-dag-har-vi-brugt-jordens-ressourcer-2018

[5] ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ Is This Week - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

[6] Earth Overshoot Day: It's More About Carbon Emissions Than Resources (youmatter.world)

3.1 Earth Overshoot Day